1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a motor vehicle door lock with a metallic carrier plate and an associated locking mechanism, the carrier plate having a flat side, a side section bent from it, and an inlet slot extending from the flat side into the side section for a clamp which is of the motor vehicle door lock and which can be secured by the locking mechanism in the inlet slot in the area of the flat side, the inlet slot having a bent edge section which extends in the area of the flat side along at least one part of the edge of the inlet slot.
2. Description of Related Art
A motor vehicle door lock with the initially named features is already known from practice. One such motor vehicle door lock which is shown by way of example in FIG. 1 has a metallic carrier plate with one flat side and a side section bent from it. In the carrier plate, an inlet slot extends from the flat side to the side section for a clamp of the motor vehicle door lock. The locking mechanism of the motor vehicle door lock can secure the clamp in the inlet slot in the area of the flat side. To achieve comparatively high stability and load-bearing capacity, especially in an accident, the inlet slot is provided with a bent edge section in the area of the flat side which extends along a part of the edge of the inlet slot and which leads to stiffening of the carrier plate.
It has been shown that a motor vehicle door lock of the known type requires a carrier plate of comparatively thick plate material when the desired stiffness and load-bearing capacity, especially high tensile strength, are to be achieved.
The primary object of the invention is to devise a motor vehicle door lock which enables use of a carrier plate of thinner plate material with comparable tensile strength of the motor vehicle door lock and/or has higher stiffness or tensile strength.
The aforementioned object is achieved in accordance with the present invention by a motor vehicle door lock in which the bent edge section extends from the flat side via a transition into the side section along the edge of the inlet slot.
The underlying idea of this invention is to xe2x80x9cpull aroundxe2x80x9d or lengthen the bent edge section around the transition from the flat side of the carrier plate to the side section of the carrier plate. It has been found that, in this way, surprisingly, high stiffness of the carrier plate and the motor vehicle door lock can be achieved. Since the locking mechanism of the motor vehicle door lock, which has especially a lock latch for securing the clamp of the motor vehicle door lock in the inlet slot, is directly or indirectly supported on the carrier plate, accordingly higher tensile strength and higher holding force of the motor vehicle door lock in the closed state can be achieved when using a carrier plate of plate material with the previously conventional thickness. In the individual case, the approach of the invention, even when using a carrier plate of thinner plate material as compared to that of the prior art, can lead to higher stiffness and tensile strength of the motor vehicle door lock.
Optimum stiffness and tensile strength are preferably achieved by the bent edge section extending around the entire inlet slot or along the entire edge of the inlet slot. Alternatively, the bent edge section can also be interrupted in areas.
Simple production is preferably achieved in that the initially flat carrier plate for an already bent edge section with a relatively large bending radius is bent or bevelled in the area of the transition from the flat side to the side section of the carrier plate. Surprisingly, it has been shown that, in spite of or due to this large bending radius, high stiffness and tensile strength of the motor vehicle door lock can be achieved.
Preferably the edge section is bent to the outside, i.e., pointing away from the lock mechanism.
Simple production is achieved in that the edge section has at least essentially the same width and thickness along the edge of the inlet slot. In particular, the aforementioned bending radius is matched thereto.
However, the width and/or the thickness of the edge section can also be varied along the edge of the inlet slot in order to enable, for example, an optimum compromise between stiffening and minimization of the required bending radius in the transition from the flat side to the side section and still to achieve very high or optimum stiffening by the edge section in other areas.
Other details, features and advantages of this invention are explained below using the drawings.